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Doctor Who: Animus
Doctor Who: Animus is a 2015 fan series based on the BBC television series, Doctor Who, and is developed by Mojofilms Productions. Animus follows the Doctor and new companion Joe as they travel through time and space facing off enemies who have come to claim the bounty placed on the Doctor's head by an unknown adversary. The series is executive produced by Daniel Isaac, who previously worked on another fan series Doctor Who: Time and Space The series seven episode run began in January 2015 and ended in October of the same year. Episode List All Seven episodes of the series have been released, as well as a two minute prequel minisode to episode one. All episodes were written by Daniel Isaac. Each episode is stand alone with connections to the series story arc, aside from episode six and seven which is a two part story. Cast and Characters Heroes The Doctor (played by Jack Edwards/Rhys Cropper) The Animus incarnation of the Doctor follows on from the official series. His regeneration number is not known as the executive producer didn't want to label him as he wanted viewers to see that this series could happen anywhere after whichever Doctor was currently on TV. The Animus Doctor is smart, cool, funny while also a bit clumsy and not very fluent with his speaking skills, often unable to pronounce his words and sentences correctly. Jack Edwards portrays the lead incarnation of the Animus Doctor while Rhys Cropper portrays his previous regeneration in the minisode prequel, episode one (flashbacks) and episode five in the leading role. Joseph Queen (played by Brody Olsen/Kyle Cropper) Joseph Queen is the Doctor's companion in Animus. He is initially a computer expert and an alien conspiracy theorist. His parents were murdered in the past, which leads to Joseph leaving with the Doctor to not be alone. Brody Olsen portrays Joseph while Kyle Cropper portrays his younger self in the leading role of episode five. Clementine '(played by Shani Feldon) Clementine is the co-companion of Animus. While never joining the Tardis crew, she is the earth bound companion that Joseph turns to when in need. She disagrees with Joseph's alien conspiracy theories but doesn't strive too far to hang with him. Zoe Shelton was originally cast to portray the character but in early October Shani Feldon was cast in the role. 'Aliens and Enemies Animus will have new aliens and enemies specially created by the writer for this series. While a few episodes will have aliens from the official series, most episode will feature new creations. New aliens that will feature in Animus *Petrovites *Saethaen (?) *Maglomites * Salaquil * Xaldor of the Voltarions * Voltarion Blood Hound * Cyberman * Dalek * The Harbinger * P.E.P.P.E.R. The Cromatrites, an alien race featured in Isaac's first series Time and Space, are referenced in episode four. Daniel stated that a cromatrite episode was going to happen but ultimately put on the self to avoid confusion between Animus and Time and Space. Production Development Talks of a new Doctor Who fan series developed by Daniel Isaac at Mojofilms Productions has been going around since early 2013. Daniel finished production on his final episode of his first Doctor Who fan series titled Time and Space in mid 2013. At the time, Isaac had been considering extending the story of Time and Space, with new adventures for his series' final Doctor. Originally Time and Space was to run for two seasons and after extending the run one season by year for two years, making the series have four seasons, Daniel consider the idea of once again extending his series to be "insane." By late 2013, Daniel considered co-developing a prequel Time and Space series following the first Doctor from Time and Space, before viewers saw him in his first Time and Space episode. The idea was in talks for a few months but the idea was scrapped due to cast. The idea of doing another Doctor Who fan series still intrigued Daniel, however due to having no cast or writers, he had to push it aside. "I wanted to do another series, however this time I didn't want to portray the Doctor and I didn't want to write every episode." Isaac stated. In early 2014, after converting fellow friend Brody Olsen to a Whovian, Brody asked Daniel to consider doing a fan series with him. After much thought, Daniel agreed under the condition that it not be a fan series, but rather a one off feature fan film. Daniel wanted this to save time and not plan so much. Brody agreed and planning for a fan film was under way. The plot was conceived by Daniel in February 2014 with the idea of having a young William Hartnell Doctor and exploring his origins as well as the story of how the Master became evil. The story developed for quite a few weeks. While filming for another production, Daniel and Brody talked to another friend, Jack Edwards. Jack, as a Whovian, was intriguied by the idea of a young Hartnell fan film. He convinced Daniel and Brody to continue this idea and put it to paper. Jack also wanted to work with Daniel and Brody and do a full fan series. Daniel agreed to work with Jack, but didn't want to do a full season. Later in March, Daniel learnt from Jack that a fan series titled A Wild Endeavour was being developed to explore the origins of a young Doctor and Master. Learning that his idea had already been thought of, Daniel and Jack entered discussions for a new fan film story. After much talk, the two came up with a new story. The two then decided to do a full fan series rather than a fan film because they realised that the story arc had potential to be a hit. Daniel talked with Brody and Doctor Who: Animus was confirmed in pre-production. The series has been ordered for a first season. If season one is well received and casting can be made, a second season will be issued. In regards to the production and story quality Daniel stated, "Animus is going to take a much serious approach to a Doctor Who Fan Film Series. The stories are larger in scale than known fan films out there and the production quality is going to be as large as popular fan films out there like 'Fire and Ice' and 'Time Agent.' Animus is going to be big and the stories are going to be amazing!" Pre-Production Pre-Production officially began in late March. Daniel Isaac was announced as lead writer and executive producer with Brody Olsen as a producer. The characters were cast originally as having a male companion. Jack and Brody wanted a female companion but Isaac believed they should have a male companion to avoid the typical female role in the official series. Daniel also believed having a male companion would better suit the Doctor and story presented in Animus. Negotiations continued and ended with Daniel making a deal with Jack to have the companion as a male and to have the sub-companion as female. Script writing has been issued, with Isaac writing 5/10 of the episodes, Jack writing 3/10 of the episodes and Brody writing 2/10 of the episodes. Isaac has also stated that the series will be filmed and produced in a much more professional way than a lot of other fan series on the web. "Brody and I almost have our diplomas for Film and TV, so we know more stuff now and are putting that into Animus." Daniel said. In June 2014, the amount of episodes for the series has dropped from 10 to 8. Daniel confirmed it was due to a number of reason, "Jack and I got talking and we started to think we might not have enough time for 10 episodes and Brody came to me asking me to write his episodes due to other committments. I respectively declined as I have other committments too. We decided to cut one of Brody's episodes and merge Jack's two parter into a single episode." Daniel has also claimed that this gives them more time to make the series more professional. In mid October, the episode count dropped once again from 8 to 7 episodes. Daniel stated "Jack is a hard guy to get to film with. He's always busy and unfortunately he's not available next year, so I've had to cut an episode out due to time. It's very upsetting but I had no choice." Later on, Daniel went on to say that "episodes 1-4 and 6-8 are vital to the Animus story, which is why I cut episode 5 out of all episodes, however if we have enough time before the end of this year, we will try to get together to film the cut episode, which would have featured Cybermen." Writing For the series, Daniel originally scheduled three writers, Brody Olsen for episodes 3, 7 and 8, Jack Edwards for episode 2, 4 and 5 and himself for episodes 1,6,9 and 10. When the episode count was dropped from 10 to 8, Daniel now arranged for him to write episodes 1,2,4,6,7 and 8 while Jack wrote episode 5 and Brody wrote episode 3 with Jack. Due to time, Daniel was brought in to co-write Jack's episode 5 script. For episode 3, Jack asked a fellow school teacher from his time at school for a script his teacher wrote for his own Doctor Who Fan Film. The script was given to Jack and Brody to rewrite and edit to fit the Animus story line. As of August all episodes have been written except for episodes 2,3 and 6. Daniel has stated that "episode 2 is a pain to write because it's the Doctor and his new companions first journey in the Tardis, so you've got to get it right, that and I've been trying to work out a good enough story to set in a limited location and use limited cast." As of late August Daniel has confirmed he has come up with the final story for episode 2 having worked on 3 other possible stories for the episode. As of mid October, all scripts are complete except episodes 3 and 6. Episode 6 is half way complete as stated by Daniel and negotiations are in place for Daniel to also rewrite episode 3 due to Brody needing to focus on his short film for university. As of early November, all episodes will be written by Daniel Isaac. "I'm glad in the end I get to write the entire series," says Daniel, "This story is mine, these characters, aside from already copy written ones, are mine and I'm happy I get to create the story from start to finish." Daniel also stated that the series will have a clear beginning and clear ending, with no loose strings left over from the story arc or characters. Daniel confirmed later on that episode 3 will be titled "Cast Away" and will be a mixture between a story Brody came up with, a story Jack came up with and a story Daniel came up with. "I was finding it difficult to write episode 3, and I loved the "now cancelled" episode 5 written by myself and Jack, so now I am taking that script, editing it to remove the Doctor and making it companion centric and making it episode 3." As of January 2015, all scripts are complete. In mid March, episode 5 was re-titled "The Ageing Curse" because Daniel felt that "The Relic of Youth made sense, that's what the Doctor is trying to find, but the central focus of the episode is on something that happens to him and Joseph." This focus ultimately ended up being the Doctor and Joseph being cursed by an ageing spell and made young. Filming Filming for the series commenced in July 2014 and ended in February 2015. Post-Production Daniel will be editing all episodes of the series.. As of June, 2015, all episodes have been edited. Release Doctor Who: Animus is scheduled to start releasing on the 25th of January 2015 with Episode One. From there on in, further episodes will be released once per month finishing in July. Five trailers have been released. Three teaser trailers, one full length trailer and a companion centric trailer revealing the companion's back story. In early December 2014, a Minisode Prequel to Episode One was released online. It showed Rhys Cropper as the Doctor and his discovery that a ship lurks in orbit of Earth. Daniel has stated that the prequel was created to create 'more hype' for the series and to show the previous Doctor before we go 'running into episode one with the next incarnation he is going to be.' Doctor Who: Animus will be released monthly from January 2015 at www.youtube.com/ballybally1 Due to uploading issues, Episode 2 was uploaded in March rather than February, pushing every episode from then up a month. After the release of Episode Two, Daniel scheduled a hiatus on releasing the episodes. In late June, the hiatus ended with the release of Episode 3. Episodes will continue to broadcast uninterrupted. The series finished airing in October 2015. Reception The series upon release was met with positive reviews, with audiences welcoming Jack Edwards Doctor, citing him as being very much like Sherlock Holmes. The first episode's story and introduction of the Doctor as well as the introduction of Joseph Queen was met with praise from several audience members. Positive reception continued through the next two episodes. Episode Five in particular received audience acclaim, with praise being directed at the unique story, characters, villain and overall development of the story arc. The Two Part series finale was met with audience acclaim as well, with many comments being left at the end of episode 6 regarding when the release of the final episode would be since the episode was left on such a large cliffhanger. Upon release, Episode 7, the finale, received instant audience acclaim, with praise directed at the story, acting, direction and resolution of the story arc. Many reviewers have sent messages to Daniel asking if there is going to be a second season, which unfortunately there will not be. Daniel stated, "Could we do more? Yes. Do we think and or want to do more? No. Animus is very much an open ended story. It begins perfectly and ends perfectly. It leaves no questions unanswered. It quite literally has the perfect ending. It wraps up nicely. To come back and keep the story going would not only be a disservice to Animus, but ultimately it would defeat the purpose of the story."